


Windmills Don't Tilt in Space

by nonky



Category: Defying Gravity (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 05:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17739947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: Prompted by mustbethursday3 on LJ: Donner/Zoe, Hands, like secrets, are the hardest thing to keep from you/Lines and phrases, like knives, your words can cut me through





	Windmills Don't Tilt in Space

It was months before Donner could see past the guilt to the answer; THE ANSWER, the answer of all answers, the only solution to the only problem, the crushing want he hadn't known he was feeling until it lifted with a thought.

He and Zoe had a one-night stand, he and Zoe made a baby. It was an accident, but apparently it was more than that. She very sensibly and legally took control of her body and protected her place in the astronaut program; he would have done the same if the positions were reversed. It wasn't meant to be a neat and logical conclusion but it was no more unfair than the quirk of biology that undid his vasectomy.

What finally got him thinking again was a coincidence. He knew Zoe would have lied forever to keep him from feeling badly. When she started having complications, she'd done everything she could to avoid him. That wasn't blame. She was trying to cut him a break. Donner recalled nosing into her business dozens of times just when it must have been excruciating for her not to answer.

His instincts were right on, though, when he'd followed her out of the field trip at the hospital. There had been more yelling than comforting, but he had been there to catch her and carry her back in. He had been there to worry about her. The fact that he didn't know what to worry about was a male lapse. He could navigate the guy stuff and the guy-girl stuff, but guy-girl-babymaking stuff was something he'd never looked into.

He hadn't been able to sustain resentment at her frosty attitude. She had been through some things, he couldn't really relate to the loss effectively unless she'd tell him about it. It took a few years to get it out of her. Donner was sorry he'd offered a shoulder and an ear a few times but never done anything to really convince Zoe she could talk to him.

When she told him about their baby, he'd felt stupid and then numb. A space ship was a lousy place to grieve. There were no days off, or time to himself. He dealt with it as well as he could, and tried not to treat Zoe badly. He couldn't look at her for a while. He couldn't cry. Telling someone else seemed unfair to Zoe.

They had a ship of telepathic, possibly omniscient aliens, running the mission like a black ops rescue. The aliens picked and chose who ended up on the ship, they weeded out who they didn't want. Time and again, Zoe had been out, then back in the running. He wasn't so fit mentally to be up there, but he was on board.

He waited until their night cycle, and took off his shoes before he walked to her door. He knocked softly and bowed his head in a suggestion of prayers he didn't remember. If Zoe could hear it from him, he had the answer.

"Hi," she said through the inch of space she opened. "What's up?"

Her unwillingness to have big emotional scenes had gotten them stuck - he smiled to show her it was good news, if she'd let him say it.

"I figured out why we're here, you and I. I don't know about anyone else," he said. "But you and I are here to have a second chance together. You're dreaming about being pregnant, I'm dreaming about failing the woman I love. That's not her anymore - that's you."

Zoe pushed her door open and hauled him in, closing it silently as she scrubbed at her messy hair. "Donner, I don't know if that's going to work. We're not supposed to. We did it once, and I'm not blaming you, but it was hard to get over everything."

She had pillow creases on her face; pillow shoved under her flight suit at Hallowe'en, trying to pretend she hadn't been in disguise a week earlier. If they somehow managed it, they would have the bravest, most stubborn kid in the history of humanity. His hands grabbed her wild gestures and held them.

"I'm never going to get over it, Zoe, I don't think we're supposed to. I'm not talking about some stress reduction between co-workers. I'm saying we chase after that moment we met and run until we catch it. We go to bed, and touch each other, and halos be damned if they get in our way! Only this time you talk to me and maybe we have a nice dinner now and again."

"That sounds . . . nice," said told him sadly. "And it's not like I can get pregnant again, right?"

Donner swallowed hard. That was the really crazy part of his theory. He had gotten a second vasectomy and Zoe didn't have a uterus. They shouldn't be able to have a baby even off the halos. He believed they were meant to have that kid, and it was going to happen in outer space.

"This whole mission is about impossible things. Sometimes you dream about real futures and that gives you the confidence to make it happen. I don't want to put any pressure on you, or give you false hope, but I have this feeling - this bigger than life feeling - that you will get pregnant. That despite the odds of it happening and working out, we'll end up with the most miraculous miracle baby ever."

Her face crumpled, and it hurt to see the sadness, but she had to know what she was getting into with him. Zoe shuffled over to her bed and sat down. He sat beside her and rubbed between her shoulder blades. When her tears died down, he touched her face.

"I've missed you. I think I've been lonely for you since I met you."

She let out a combined laugh and sob. "Donner, this is insane! What you're saying is physically impossible and incredibly stupid. It's the sweetest thing anyone has said to me, but I should be taking you to the infirmary."

He grinned and picked up her hand to kiss the back of it. "But in your head, it echoes around like something you already knew, doesn't it?"

The wait was torture, but he let her make up her mind the way she hadn't that first night. He cupped her cold little hand in his own and tried to warm her. Zoe scratched under her hair and sighed.

"It's just crazy enough to work, Donner," she said fondly. "And if it did happen, I'd be happy about it. I think I'm saying yes to this."

"You don't have to decide now," he said, mouth pursed in forced patience. He needed the answer as soon as she'd say it, but he wouldn't push her on something as important as destiny.

Zoe took her hand away, turned on her hip, and kissed him lightly. His mouth fell open with relief - he couldn't even muster himself to do anything with her invitation yet.

"It's going to be okay this time," he murmured. "And if it's not, I'll be here for all of it."

"I know."


End file.
